Practice question · Multiple choice
Watson conditioned an infant to fear a white rat, and the study would not be approved today. What did it actually establish, separately from whether it should have been run?
Hints
- Pavlov had already shown conditioning of a reflex. Ask what was new about doing it to an emotion, in a person.
- Albert came to fear a rabbit and a fur coat too. What does that add?
Show the answer
A. That an emotional response can be conditioned in a human
Why
It moved conditioning from salivation to emotion, and from dogs to a child, and the generalisation to a rabbit and a coat is the part that mattered, because it made phobia look learnable. The ethics are indefensible and the finding is real, and the two judgements are separate.
Practise Behaviorism
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